On the train ride to Goa, one of the Masala tea servers came by. Lauren ordered some, asking, “May I have some Masala tea?” The server cocked his head to the side, subltely wobbling it side to side. Lauren, confused and unsure of what she had said wrong, took this signal to mean no and said, “but…” as the server began pouring the tea anyway.

As he left, Beth pointed to the Let’s Go guide where she had ready earlier, “A quick tilt of the head, a sort of wobbling sideways nod, means ‘Ok,’ or ‘I understand.’ Many foreigners are baffled by the gesture, thinking their hosts are answering their most innocent comments and requests with a firm ‘no.’”

Later, we heard our friends Thomana (Kalpana and Thomas, see “The Breast Mystique”) discussing the bobble. Kalpana explained the gesture can mean completely different things, depending on the context.

Thus, we discovered the “bobble.”

A better description for the bobble is the top of the head bobbles back and forth, left to right. Sometimes it can be a quick snap back and forth; other times, it consists of several back and forths, tapering off slowly.

And our instinct is to read it as a “no,” or more specifically as an “eh,” or “whatever” or “okay, but I’m really not all that happy about it.” Understanding the bobble means something very different, however, is crucial to traveling in India. Otherwise, you’d spend a lot of time thinking all people ever say here is no.

On Lauren’s birthday, we took a trip into the capital of Goa, which was a veritable ghost town due to the fact that it was Sunday, God’s day in very Catholic Goa. We stumbled onto a pretty good Indian restaurant, where Kaplana first introduced Lauren to Lassi, a yogurt drink, which she is now obsessed with, and where the crew surprised Lauren with birthday chocolate cake (that she got to cut with a saber sized knife – see pictures).

We returned to the beach, where we spent the afternoon drinking lime soda, chatting on the lounge chairs on the shoreline, and body surfing in the waves. After a gorgeous sunset, we headed into town, had yet another delicious meal, and then found a nice beach bar where we drank “King” beer (a Goan specialty) until 2am.

The next morning, Beth woke up with a cold and Lauren with nausea. At first light, Lauren was certain that she was horribly hung over and was therefore convinced that she was in fact extremely old (having had very few beers the night before). She promptly swore off drinking beer ever again. However, as the day progressed, the reality that it was traveller’s stomach kicked in. Lauren spent the day in bed, comforting herself with Imodium, rehydrating salts, and the knowledge that 28 might not signify the end of her party days.

The next several days we spent in slow paced Goa. Each morning, people leisurely stolled out of bed and we’d have breakfast together (not exactly together, really, because Indian food service means you get your food when its ready – and that’s rarely very soon or at the same time as your eating companions).
Thomana and the crew taught us a new card game. We ate tons of good food and were versed on Indian cuisine and eating techniques (such as how to use ones hands properly when eating rice). We also discovered the thali, an Indian “lunchbox” kind of dish that consists of several different small samples of different foods, which we now order all the time.

On Wednesday, the crew left for their trips home and we booked a train ticket to Delhi for Friday on “India’s fastest train.” The train crosses nearly the entire country in 25.5 hours. A travel agent booked the ticket for us told us it would take 45 minutes to get to the train station, and since the train left at 10:25, she suggested we leave our hotel at 9am.

Thursday night, we scheduled a taxi to pick us up the next morning at 9am the next morning. By 8:45a.m., we were packed, checked out and had settled our bill. The restaurant waiter named Boo asked us if we wanted breakfast. We said we only had 15 minutes but he insisted he could fix our breakfast in time, so we ordered tea and toast.

Our toast came within 10 minutes, but at 9am we were asking Boo for our check, telling him we didn’t have time for the tea. He brought it anyway and so not to be rude, we chugged down the scorching hot tea in five minutes.

By 9:10am, we were in the taxi, heading to the train station. The driver asked us what time our train was leaving.

“10:25,” Lauren said.

“10:25!,” the driver responded. “It takes an hour and fifteen minutes, or an hour and a half to get there!”

“But the travel agent said it took 45 minutes,” Lauren said.

“The travel agent doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” he responded.

And she didn’t. For the next hour and fifteen minutes, we sat quietly in the back, saying prayers that the train was late, as the traffic slowly moved through the streets. Another train for Delhi wouldn’t leave until next Wednesday, and we might lose our plane tickets to Kenya, which we had to pick up in Delhi in the next 72 hours.

At 10:28am, we arrived at the train station.

Beth grabbed one bag and bolted out of the car (insomuch as she can “bolt” right now) to find out what track the train was supposed to be on. Lauren grabbed the other three bags and followed.

There were no signs posted with the track numbers.

“Which track is the train to Delhi?” Beth and Lauren started asking various people, including the station master, who didn’t respond, and at a window labeled in English “May I Help You?” (but no one working there spoke English).

Finally, we took off running across a bridge that led to all the other tracks, hoping we might see a label on a train. A man stopped us.

“No need to run,” he said.

“Which train goes to Delhi?,” we asked.

“This track, but it is not here yet.”

We looked down the stairs. On the side he pointed to, there was no train. On the other side, there was a train, labeled “Nizzamudin,” the name of the train station in Delhi, and it was just starting to pull out of the station.

We ran down the stairs, prepared to jump onto the moving train when another man stopped us.

“Is that the train to Delhi?” we asked.

“Which train to Delhi? The express?” he said.

“Yes.”

“No, the express isn’t here yet. It is on the other track. It is delayed until 11am.”

Finally convinced, we collapsed on the platform, realizing that we must have created quite a scene as the Westerners running through the station yelling “Delhi!” But our prayers for a train delay were answered and the train rolled up to the tracks nearly an hour later.